[ELECTRONIC/DANCE] The Clurb is a new pop up DJ party, organized by house music DJ Steve “Rufus” Gibson, and it’s on this weekend. The top slot goes to Brooklyn’s Henry Chow, a house DJ with a diverse set of tunes that push into odd funk, classic house, and percussive techno. Brooklynites are lucky to catch Chow, originally from Houston, Texas, ramping up dance floors regularly at clubs like TBA Brooklyn, Good Room, and Studio 299.
[FUNK] Kool and the Gang may not have achieved household-name success until the mid-later 1970’s, but the group formed in the mid-1960’s out of Jersey City, giving their career an impressive 50-year-span. The current lineup, which will play the Seneca Niagara Events Center on Saturday, September 1, retains four original members, including bothers Robert and Ronald Bell.
[ROCK] Perhaps best remembered for their FM-staple, “Slow Ride,” British boogie-blues quartet Foghat was urged to reform in the early-mid 1990’s by Rick Rubin. Rubin is known for being a production pioneer and has won tons of awards for his work, so the band took his suggestion despite his eventually proving unavailable to produce the album they made at that time, Return of the Boogie Men.
[ROCK] What the hell is a Holtz-a-Palooza, you might ask? Well, if you’ve spent any time down at Buffalo Ironworks, you may have met GM Josh Holtzman. Josh is also on the board of directors for Music is Art, is a co-founder of Cobblestone Live and also used to manage Aqueous, among other endeavors. And he’s getting married.
[ROCK] It may never have occurred to you, but PA-based Breaking Benjamin has managed to sell some seven million full length albums and about as many singles during their almost 20 year career – impressive numbers at a time when 50,000 copies is a decent hit on the indie market — despite a hiatus from 2010-2014 and enough lineup changes to make it a completely different band (save for front man/lyricist Benjamin Burnley).
[ELECTRONIC/DANCE] From Berlin by way of Vancouver, electronic music producer, PLO Man, brings a unique brand of minimal techno with plenty of atmosphere and vibe. His ASMR inducing style of euphoric though sometimes ominous techno occasionally borders on the ambient, though never gets boring, as the artist demonstrated on his latest PLO Radio broadcast, which airs live on Berlin Community Radio twice a month.
[TRIBUTE] It can be tricky, “paying tribute.” Folks shell out for tickets with expectations that are often completely unrealistic. We have many bands that travel around the world doing their damndest to recreate the concert experiences of yore, note for note, complete with flying pigs and gigantic plastic zeppelins.
[JAM] Have you ever noticed that jam band enthusiasts seem less weighed down than the rest of us? It could just be the copious cannabis, but many a seasoned smoker will tell you that too much of a good thing can lead to a sort of “baked psychosis”—waffling and apathy. Haters gonna hate, but the music plays an important role in that wow-man-jam-band energy, feeding off of vibes that are perpetuated by a combination of improv skills, cooperative crowd spirit and, yes, good herb.
[ELECTRONIC/DANCE] This isn’t your typical electronic dance music concert—it’s goes a bit deeper than that and there is more to know about it than just who the DJ is. We’ll start there, anyways. Porter Robinson is Virtual Self, a 26-year-old electro house music producer who has made music for OWSLA, the label run by Skrillex, and in 2014 released Worlds, his debut studio album released by Astralwerks.
DONALD BLANK is a Buffalo photographer whose books, Buffalo 1967 and People I Don’t Know, document street life and people in his city. This photograph was taken at Arthur’s House of Style (1375 Jefferson Avenue).
[PUNK] Head over to Sugar City for a bunch of hardcore and punk this Sunday, August 26. The top slot goes to La Crosse, Wisconsin-based hardcore band Rig Time. They’ll be joined by Buffalo punk bands Uniform OPR and DUDES.